The myriad of cooperating electrical components available today has created a need for apparatus which can securely and effectively store these components in stacked relationship, not only so that the components can be electrically interconnected with one another, but so that they can be readily accessed and used. This is particularly true in power management situations in which a large number of densely packed individual components are typically used together in order to create a desired power management system.
As overall component and rack sizes have decreased, this has led manufacturers to standardize the width dimension of rack mounting systems that may house these components as much as possible. Such systems generally consist of some sort of frame structure that have shelves with individual bays mounted thereon and into which smaller electronics chassis, such as power modules, rectifiers, or controllers can be inserted. These rack mounting systems are extant both in the form of rather large open systems permanently installed in establishments, and in the form of relatively small boxes which fully enclose the shelves of components to protect same from damage due to the surroundings.
Over the course of many years, as well as many design iterations, the industry has attempted to optimize all aspects of the rack mounting systems, as well as the chassis that are housed within these rack mounting systems. However, as the miniaturization and densification of rack design has occurred, the clearance space between the chassis residing on one shelf and the overlying shelf has shrunk such that it has become difficult to easily remove the chassis from their respective bays, which is important for maintenance, repair or replacement.
The removal of the chassis from its bay can be difficult because the back end of the chassis typically has an electrical interface that has a fairly tight frictional fit with a corresponding back end electrical interface on the shelf in which the chassis is located. Due to the limited clearance between the chassis and the shelf, it is difficult for a technician to adequately grasp the chassis and exert enough force to disengage the corresponding electrical interfaces from each other.
To overcome this, the industry has tried various types of fasteners and ejector systems. However, these systems have not adequately addressed the problem from a cost/benefit standpoint because of their design complexity or cost of manufacture. Other problems with these designs include the ejectors ability to apply enough insertion and ejection force to blind mate multi-beam connectors. Additionally, these designs use more chassis volume than is desirable and the devices lack the ability to lock and latch units into the shelf in both a vertical and horizontal direction.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an ejector design for use in a chassis that is simplistic in design, cost effective to manufacture, integrates into the shelf design with minimal change to the chassis or shelf and provides the required amount of latching and ejection force with respect to the chassis.